Some Key Techniques In Media DSP IP Core Design

Rapid improvement of the deep-submicron technology and chip design techniques make system integration on one chip possible, and drive the embedded system design into multiprocessor systems-on-chips (MPSoCs) era. Multimedia processing is also a driving force for the development of SoC. DSP with high flexibility and good cost-performance ratio is especially suitable for multimedia processing fields. Media enhanced DSP design based on IP core speeds up the development of embedded systems. As a hotspot, multi-core DSP is becoming an effective solution for multimedia application.The author participates in the project of the MediaDSP64, which is developed by the SoC R&D Group of Zhejiang University. The research work introduced in this thesis mainly concerns the design of MediaDSP64 IP core, including DSP micro-architecture, data transporting mechanism and precise exceptions supporting RTOS (real time operation system) and debugger.By analyzing the pipeline control and data hazards, a general bypassing model which is abstracted from the behavior of pipeline operation was established. In order to analyze the data bypassing strategy in the processor, a method of design complexity estimation was suggested. With the help of bypassing model, some ideas like simplified partial bypassing, auxiliary register file, and hazards detection according to need were implemented in MD64's bypassing optimization design to reduce hardware resources and improve pipeline performances efficiency. Meanwhile a decoupling method was used to reduce the delay latency of critical path. The suggested general bypassing model can also be used in design bypassing network in superscalar and VLIW processors.From parallelism between multi data transfer task and computing, this paper discusses the importance of using DMA technique to carry out data transmission for DSP. Multimode DMA engine is designed in MD64, which has advantage of low overhead, high data transfer efficiency and flexibility in programming.At last the precise exceptions pipeline is implemented to fit for the application of RTOS and debugger, which greatly enhances the MD64's capability in program control and effectively extends the MD64's application field.